Epiphanies
by ColdCoffeeEyes25
Summary: Andrew starts to catch on.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Siobhan is singing.

Andrew sits at his desk - how long has he been studying this spreadsheet? Twenty minutes? Forty - and tries to ignore the sounds coming from the kitchen. They are faint; the apartment, though open-concept, is designed to minimize the travel of noise from one room to the next. He remembers the first walk-through with the realtor, who made a point of stepping into the next room to demonstrate this trick of acoustics. A strange moment, forever emblazoned on his memory: a tall brunette, half dignified, half desperate to please, clapping her hands together just out of sight behind the elegant arch of the door - and by his side, Siobhan, rolling her eyes.

Eye-rolling is typical of Siobhan. Singing is not. Perhaps, Andrew thinks, singing is the antithesis of eye-rolling. One cannot be exuberant and joyful at the same time that one is detached and self-protective. And Siobhan has always been … careful.

It's shallow of him, but he loved that about her from the beginning, from the first moment - her tiny frame, her fair coloring, her fragility, the watchful wariness in her light eyes. She notices things, she takes them in and mulls them over. She thinks before she reacts. She places words deliberately, like beads on a chain, gauging them for maximum impact.

Funny, Andrew thinks, how vulnerable she seemed at first, how wounded, how much in need of protection. Funny, too, how quickly that skittishness hardened into something very much like dislike.

He wishes he knew what he did to cause that. Because if he knew, then he would also know what he did to change her back. And if he knew _that_, he would repeat it. Over, and over, and over, and over again.

Siobhan is singing.

He pushes back his chair - it moves silently; well-oiled wheels against plush carpeting - and edges through the dining room toward the kitchen. The kitchen has seen more use since Siobhan turned happy again, and her good mood is reflected in her culinary creations. He's surprised by what she's chosen to cook, actually - a year ago she took a six-week course with Escoffier and turned out a series of elaborately stylized _haute cuisine _meals, tiny portions on square designer plates that looked better than they tasted, before she got bored with cooking and moved on to watercolors. No grape salsa or avocado foam now, though; no imported fat-free yam noodles or cremini mushrooms or grated beet slaw. Scrambled eggs, pasta with tomato sauce from a jar (granted, an expensive jar, but still), hot chocolate. Two nights ago, he nearly lost an eyebrow into his hairline when she came into his office with a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup that he'd swear was straight from a can.

Not that he's complaining. Lord, no. Campbell's every night of the week. Mac and powdered day-glo cheese from the blue box. Locusts and honey. Bring it on, as Juliette would say, bring it on, if it means that whatever he's doing is finally the right thing.

He sniffs appreciatively, peers around the corner. She's emptying a package of ground beef into a hot skillet, prodding at it with a spatula to flatten and separate it. As he watches, she picks up a $200 cross-grain bamboo cutting board from Neiman Marcus Home and uses it to unceremoniously dump a double handful of chopped onions into the skillet. She's still warbling along to whatever it is that's pumping into her ears through that skinny white cord - something uptempo and cheerful about the truth coming out, a little at a time.

Not _La Traviata, _then.

She slides the cutting board into the sink; she brandishes the spatula like a microphone; she spins back toward the stove, eyes closed, intent on the music, hips sliding a slow circle that makes Andrew's throat close with fierce, sudden desire. She's wearing clothes he recognizes - yoga pants from Bergdorf's, something stretchy and knit on top - but he's only ever seen them in her gym bag before tonight. She took ballet as a child, he remembers, dry-mouthed; of course she can dance. But this - this deep-knee bend, this spin and counterspin, this abandoned shimmy, shoulders back and arms out, perfect teacup breasts jiggling - this is _not _ballet. It's like she's having sex with herself, fully clothed and standing up.

And then the song ends. She opens her eyes, sees him watching her, and flushes deep red from her chest to her hairline.

He grins; he can't help it. This is flip-side Shiv - the vulnerability he remembers from the old days, but turned out toward him instead of in on herself. She shrugs and drops her eyes, another wave of blood coursing into her face, and prods sheepishly at the sizzling pan with the spatula.

"Sorry," she says, not looking at him. "Sometimes I get carried away. How much of that did you see?"

"Not nearly enough," he says before he can think better of it, and is rewarded by yet another blush.

"I thought I'd make spaghetti. Is that okay with you?"

"Fantastic," he says. The blush emboldens him to move a little nearer. "Smells wonderful. Looks even better."

"It's not fancy."

When, he wonders, did he start to hesitate before he touched her? He ventures a hand toward her tousled hair - silken, slightly damp at the scalp with her exertion, back to her natural streaky blonde from whatever homogenous platinum she'd imposed on it. She quivers under his hand; is it pleasure or revulsion? he wonders, and has his answer when her chin tips up and he can read her face at last. Such soft-mouthed invitation, such limpid eyes. Who is this new Siobhan who gives herself to the moment, who looks at him as though she might love him after all, who kisses him in the kitchen and lets the onions burn?

"Fantastic," he says again, his lips against hers. He feels her smile.

Something is different.

Something is wrong.

He is terrified that it will end.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

* * *

><p>It doesn't take long for his pleased bemusement to harden into suspicion. He's not stupid, after all.<p>

Nothing about her is the same.

He starts to keep track of the little things that niggle at him. Putting hamburger in the spaghetti sauce. Beating Juliette handily at some silly cell phone video game that he's fairly sure she's never played before. Turning down dinner invitations from Jack and Carol Rossiter - pompous gasbags that she's been courting socially for more than a year - without a murmur of protest, when he makes a face at the sound of their names.

That's a big one, right there. She doesn't even make him feel guilty about it later, just makes smiling excuses into the telephone and returns to her mystery novel - and there's another one for the list: since when did Shiv read fiction instead of self-improvement?

"Tired of your Kindle?" he prompts, curious. She hesitates, then shrugs.

"I guess so. I like the way that a real book feels."

"Ah," he says, but what he's thinking is, _Really?_

And then there's what happens at night, in bed.

Shiv's always been a light sleeper, prone to insomnia. Sleep masks, lavender aromatherapy pillows, relaxation tapes - she's tried it all, layering over the homeopathic stuff with regular nighttime doses of sleeping pills. Andrew first took to sleeping in the guest room as a way to avoid waking her up at night. Later, when things were at their most strained between them, he returned to the master bedroom, grimly restaking his territory on one side of the big California king even though the foot or so of chilly space between his body and hers felt more like an acre.

When did he first notice that she wasn't taking her pills anymore? A week ago? Two?

"They're not really necessary," she told him blithely when he asked about it. "Maybe it's that the weather's getting colder. I'm sleeping like a rock. And the bed's really comfortable."

Andrew's the one with trouble sleeping now. After four years of drugging herself to unmoving unconsciousness on the far edge of their enormous bed, his wife has suddenly developed the tendency to … entwine. Nearly every night for the past few weeks, he's jolted awake to find her wrapped around him like a pair of aviator sunglasses, wearing one of his tee shirts instead of her customary satin pajamas and muttering incoherent fragments of her dreams into his chest. All those bird-call relaxation tapes must have gotten to her, or maybe she's been watching National Geographic on the sly; she talks a lot about macaws, and judging from the way she shudders against him, she thinks they're scary.

He lies awake and cuddles her pliant little body against his, and worries.

What is this? What does she want from him now, that she didn't seem to want before?

* * *

><p>"I have gifts for you," he tells her and Juliette after dinner that night. Juliette's is a gift card to Barney's - he may be holding her trust fund in abeyance at the moment, but that doesn't mean he can't indulge her perfume-and-sunglasses habit. She, at least, reacts predictably: a kiss on the cheek, a bubble of teenage-princess delight, and a retreat to her room to check out the new collection online. He smiles after her, then remembers himself and slides a flat orange box tied in brown ribbon over to Siobhan.<p>

"You're always getting me stuff," she says, beaming at him with hardly a second glance at the box. "It's so sweet. I'd say you didn't have to, but I'm not gonna lie - it makes me really happy."

"Open it," he says, grinning in spite of himself, and she does.

"Oh," she says, real surprise in her voice. "Oh, it's so _pretty_."

She holds it up, shakes out the folds, smooths her fingers over the silk. She's delighted with it, delighted with him; she can't stopper her pleasure. She comes at him over the table with the same innocent enthusiasm as Juliette, showers his face with chaste breathless kisses. And he accepts them, he welcomes the slight weight of her on his lap, he gathers her in and lets her drape both of them in Hermès silk, and underneath it he's thinking: _you are not Siobhan_.

"Do you recognize the design?" he asks her finally, pulling back a little, and she shakes her head, utterly guileless.

"It's gorgeous. Like a maze. So detailed." A flicker of doubt. "_Should_ I know it?"

"It's called Turandot," Andrew says, and waits for a reaction. Nothing. "I thought you might like it, since you enjoyed the opera so much last spring."

What he doesn't say: _it's a limited edition from 2002; I had to scour heaven and earth to find it in this condition with the tags still on and pay three times the original purchase price; you've been looking for this particular scarf in this particular colorway for months; I overheard you on the phone with Gemma in August going on and on about the jacquard and the Three Enigmas and the significance of the lotus blooms around the Caliph. Oh, and how on earth could you look at that orange box and not know immediately what was inside it? I've given you dozens of H__è__rmes scarves since we were married, and the most I've ever gotten in response was a peck on the cheek._

"It's beautiful," she says. There are tears in her eyes; she's heartbreaking in her sincerity. "_You're _beautiful."

She kisses him.

_Imposter_, he thinks, and kisses her back.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

* * *

><p>He is still troubled the next morning. Work doesn't do much to help.<p>

It's raining hard, windy too, and email is slow. Cassie from Accounting calls up to tell him about some irregularity in the foreign travel budget. He promises to get her a list of names by lunchtime, but he's distracted. More than once he catches himself staring out the window, revisiting that night several weeks ago when she ditched _Swan Lake _to come apologize to him. That was no more like Siobhan than reading a paperback mystery or blowing off the Rossiters, no more like Siobhan than holding Juliet's hair away from her face so she wouldn't vomit on it.

Pregnancy, though. Hormones.

Maternal instinct. Surely she has to have one somewhere, doesn't she? Andrew twirls his favorite pen between his fingers, uneasy to the core, and thinks back to a conversation that's been haunting him for what seems like half of forever now.

_Juliet wants to come home for Christmas. _

A sigh, a roll of the eyes. _I thought we were going to Sicily for Christmas._

_She could come with us, _Andrew offers, stung by the look on her face. _Come on, Shiv. She's just a kid._

_She's not either, _Siobhan says. _I know what kids are like. Juliet was never that … breakable._

He's often wondered what she meant by that. Certainly she didn't offer to elaborate, any more than he offered to pry. She had that set whitish cast to her mouth, that faraway vacancy in her eyes.

He hates that look. He hasn't seen it since she came back early from the Hamptons last month. Since she saw Bridget.

Could that be it? Andrew wonders. Is Bridget the key to this whole change of heart?

Maybe she apologized. Maybe Shiv has been holding a grudge all this time, a sliver of ice in her heart against some slight, some wrong, who knows what, and now it's gone. That would explain her sudden ability to sleep; it would explain her good mood; it would even explain her distraction about the scarf.

He wonders what her sister did to her, to plant that seed of anger in her soul - and, once responsible for it, how she managed to take it away when nothing he'd ever tried had worked.

_Bridget Kelly has a lot to answer for, _he thinks. Then someone clears her throat in the doorway to his office, and when he looks up, Olivia's standing there.

"I need to show you something," she says, nibbling on her lower lip. It's an uncharacteristically diffident gesture for her, and immediately puts him on his guard. "I'm afraid it's going to upset you."

"What is it?"

"Remember Siobhan's birthday last year?" Olivia says. "The disastrous one, when the Gallica deal blew up in my face and I had to call you in, and she didn't let either one of us forget it for a minute?"

Andrew frowns. Of course he remembers. "What about it?"

"Do you remember what she was wearing that night?" Olivia asks.

"Olivia, I don't have time for this." But she plants herself there, stubborn, insistent, and he relents. "It was white," he says. "Gauzy. Low-necked. She likes to wear light colors when we're in the Hamptons. I gave her a necklace and she put it on, but I don't think she cared much for it."

"Have you ever seen her wear that outfit since?"

"Shiv has a lot of clothes, Olivia. I don't keep score of them."

"Just answer me, Andrew. Have you ever seen it since?"

He sighs. "No. I haven't."

"You have to look at this," she says, and hands him her smartphone. It's cued up to a picture.

Siobhan, smiling at the camera. And Henry, Gemma's Henry, smiling at Siobhan.

* * *

><p>"It's not much on its own," Olivia says behind him, her voice trembling only slightly from eagerness. "They're just standing there. But they're awfully close together. And that outfit-"<p>

"That's the lake behind them," he murmurs.

"Exactly," Olivia says. "It must have been taken the night of her birthday. The night you had to go back into the city."

"Henry and Gemma weren't there," Andrew says, mostly to himself. "Not that year. The twins were tiny, and a handful. Gemma couldn't find a sitter. And Henry-"

"I remember, too," Olivia breathes. "On an writer's retreat, wasn't it? In upstate New York?"

He swallows. "Circumstantial."

"Circumstantial, my arse." She reclaims her phone and slides into the chair across from him, eyes snapping. "There's more."

He doesn't quite feel like himself. Light-headed, spinning. "Oh?"

She taps the picture with one French-manicured forefinger. "Ernest Hemingway here has kept a standing Wednesday reservation at an uptown hotel for nearly eighteen months running. Only stopped it six weeks ago."

Six weeks ago, Andrew thinks numbly. Six weeks ago Siobhan came back from the Hamptons. "How do you know?"

"Because he just dropped off a bunch of papers toward his tax returns, and I got nosy. He's trying to write it off as a business expense."

"The twins are noisy. He might want a quieter place to write."

"Once a week, Andrew? With a petite blonde companion?" Olivia arches one elegant eyebrow. "I bribed a maid. She recognized them both."

"No," he says, hollow clear through. "No, there's an explanation. There has to be."

"Excuse me? Mr. Martin?" Another woman in the doorway, short and square, with bobbed strawberry-blonde hair going grey at the temples; it's Cassie, from Accounting. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but there's a bill here from a hotel in Paris that matches the amount we're missing in the travel budget."

"Which hotel?"

"The Pivone," Cassie says, and Andrew nods through his haze. He knows it; he's been there. "They sent me the name of the woman staying there. Cora Farrell. Does that ring a bell?"

He can't think. "Vaguely," he says to Cassie. "But I don't know why. I'll look her up."

"She's not in our employee database," Cassie says. "And I can't find her on the vendor list, either."

"I'll look into it," he promises through a mouthful of ashes, and stands up. "Thank you, Olivia, that will be all."

"Andrew," she says, laying her smooth long-fingered hand on his arm. He shakes it off. "I know how hard this must be for you."

"There's an explanation," he repeats, his lips numb, and leaves for lunch without taking his coat or his wallet with him.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

* * *

><p>It doesn't much matter that he doesn't have any money with him; he's not in the mood to eat anyway. He walks down to Central Park - how proud he was of this office address, he thinks bitterly, for all the good it's done him - and wanders aimlessly around for a while, hands tucked into his pockets against the cold. A couple of bums give him the side-eye; he sees them think about approaching him, register the look on his face, and decide against it. Just as well - he couldn't give them anything anyway, and they'd never believe that to look at him.<p>

Six-thousand-dollar suit. Three-hundred-dollar tie. Shoes made from leather that was probably hand-massaged off a baby alpaca. _Why do I spend so much damn money on clothes?_ he wonders, and grits his teeth against a sucker punch of pain and hopelessness that hits him as he remembers: Siobhan picked out this outfit for him.

Siobhan and Henry. It's frightening how much sense that makes, in retrospect. The coolness, the secrecy, the insistence that Gemma decorate the loft - what better way to keep tabs on her, make the betrayal easier? With him, they didn't even have to try. A cold word from her, and he headed back to his spreadsheets like a kicked puppy.

Eighteen months. He feels his throat fill with bile. _Eighteen months_.

Minus six weeks.

What do those six weeks mean? Why did she come back to New York and break it off with Henry? Where is this transformation coming from - where is his beautiful, icy, treacherous enigma of a wife, and who is this marshmallow-cream doppelganger, making him spaghetti and climbing into his lap?

_What the hell happened in the Hamptons?_

"Buy you a coffee, Mr. Martin?"

He turns around. "Agent Machado," he says, toneless. "I suppose you want to ask me more questions about my wife's sister."

"The thought had crossed my mind."

Andrew hears himself laugh. It's possibly the most profoundly cynical sound that's ever come out of him. "I have no idea what possible use I can be to you, Agent," he says. "But sure. Why not? Let's just make this a perfect day all round."

* * *

><p>They end up at one of Manhattan's ubiquitous greasy-spoon diners: fifty-something waitresses in orthopedic shoes, laminated menus featuring Italian wedding soup and all-day eggs, Formica tabletops sandwiched between vinyl banquettes. "It's gotta be the gyro," Machado says, and orders two over Andrew's halfhearted protests. They don't talk before the food comes; they pull at the terrible brewed-to-death sludge that passes for coffee and keep their own counsel.<p>

The gyro is good, Andrew has to admit it; just the robust, meaty street-food smell of it revives his missing appetite somewhere at the brain-stem level. He can't remember the last time he ate with his fingers in a restaurant. He can't remember the last time he had a French fry.

"Tell me something," he says to Machado. "Before I start answering your questions, I've got a few of my own."

The detective raises a woolly eyebrow. "Sure."

"How well do you know Bridget Kelly?"

Machado ponders this. "Not as well as I thought I did," he says. "I never pegged her as a runner."

"No?"

"No." The detective takes another gulp of coffee. "The rehab was a court-order thing, you know that. Not everyone takes it seriously, but she did. She wanted to get better. She wanted to get out. The thing with Macawi was exactly the wake-up call she needed."

"Macawi," Andrew repeats. Machado nods.

"Bodaway Macawi. Gangster, murderer, drug kingpin, all-around Best in Show of the criminal-sludge sector. Not a nice man." He gestures with a French fry. "But Bridget? Sweet kid, once she sobered up. Clear as a sunny day. As positive as it's possible to be under Witness Protection."

"Didn't she feel safe?"

"No," Machado says. His eyes are shadowed and tired over the top of the coffee cup. "No, she didn't. She was frightened for her life during every waking moment. Nothing else would have made her run."

"I suppose," Andrew says slowly, "that one could do quite desperate things, operating out of fear."

"Murder, you mean?" Machado shakes his head. "The prints are there," he says, "but it doesn't make sense to me. I would never in a million years have thought Bridget Kelly was a killer. She didn't even step on ants." He pins Andrew with a piercing look. "Your turn," he says. "Has your wife been acting in ways that strike you as … uncharacteristic? Over the last several weeks?"

Andrew hesitates. "Not in any way that would affect your investigation, no," he says.

"Let me be the judge of that."

Andrew puts down his napkin. "Well," he says carefully, "it's apparently no secret that Siobhan and I were going through a rocky patch, recently. And lately, she's been … warmer."

"Warmer," Machado repeats. "Is that it?"

"What else could there be?" Andrew says, and catches the look of disappointed resignation that sculls across Machado's face. _You're lying to me, _the look says, _and I can't call you on it_.

"Well, then," he says. "I guess we're finished here."

"Stop by my office," Andrew says, "and I'll reimburse you for lunch."

"I'll do that," Machado says. "If I spend much more time in New York City, all I'll have to pass on to my kids is my good name."

Andrew laughs, and finishes his coffee, and stands up.

And then he remembers where he's heard the name Cora Farrell.

* * *

><p>He stops at the office to get his coat and his wallet, ignoring the phalanx of sticky-note messages on his desk and cutting Olivia off with one upraised hand when she tries to intercept him at the elevator. Before he leaves the building, he detours downstairs and pauses at Cassie's cubicle.<p>

"Keep paying the hotel bill for Farrell," he says under his breath, "but take it off the company tab. It should go to my personal account."

Cassie nods. "She's charging stuff to the room," she says. "Not just meals, but shopping-type things. Do you want me to cut that off?"

Andrew considers this. "No," he says. "Just keep track of what it is. Keep track of everything."

"Yes, sir."

Then, the car, and the customary fifteen-minute ride that seems like a lifetime. He forces himself to smile at the driver, close the door gently, wait for the elevator.

One manipulates him with cold, the other with warmth. Well, no more.

He's done.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

* * *

><p>He hears their voices before he sees them. Juliet and Siobhan. No, not Siobhan. Siobhan is hiding from him in Paris, living it up on his company's dime, and why that should surprise him in the least he can't say.<p>

He can still recall her last words to him before she left for her weekend in the Hamptons. _Have a good time, _he'd said to her, leaning in for a perfunctory farewell kiss, and she'd turned her head so he'd get her cheek, not her lips.

_How can I help it? _she'd said, already stooping to pick up her bag. _At least it's not here_.

He wonders how long they planned for this. It solves all their problems, doesn't it, the scheming, duplicitous pair of them?

" … can't remember the last time I did this," Juliet is saying. "It feels so _retro_."

"I guess usually you go to the nail salon," Not-Siobhan says, and now that Andrew's listening for it he can hear the note of wry self-correction in her voice. "Me too. I just liked this color, I guess. Impulse buy."

"No, it's great. You're good at it, too." His daughter sounds surprised and pleased. "How did you get the white bit so even?"

"Your nail's curved. So the brush has to move in a curve, too." A pause, a clink of glass. "See? Like that."

Juliet holds her hand out in front of her, admiring it. "I seriously cannot tell this apart from the manicure at Belsauvage."

"Thanks."

"I mean it. This isn't as easy as it looks. Heather Dubois tried to give me French tips once at a slumber party, like, in eighth grade, and I ended up looking like I'd had a fight with a Liquid Paper pen."

"I like French tips," Not-Siobhan says. "No matter what you do all day, your hands still look clean. Plus, I used to be a nail-biter, and that cured me."

"Wow. I would never have guessed that."

His rage temporarily derailed by morbid curiosity, Andrew edges to the corner of the doorway, far enough so that he can see them sitting at the dining room table. Blonde head bent together with dark, vintage sterling candlesticks shoved out of the way to make room for tiny bottles of Passion Punch and Red Hots and Cinnamon Toast. Not-Siobhan has Juliet's hand cradled between both of hers.

They're both wearing tank tops and pajama pants: Juliet's have fluffy pink poodles on them and Not-Siobhan's are faded navy plaid. Andrew wonders if they're something she brought with her; the real Siobhan would no more wear navy plaid flannel than jump off the penthouse balcony.

How did he not see this? How did she fool him even for one day?

_Bridget_, he says to himself, trying on the name, looking at her while he does it so he can associate the unfamiliar sound with the face that's driven him crazy for years. _Bridget, not Siobhan_.

Who is this woman?

Drug addict, stripper, possible prostitute, runaway witness to a murder that could very well track straight into his living room. Owner of fingerprints found at another murder scene. But also, kitchen singer, kid whisperer - seriously, he hasn't seen Juliet this bubbly and relaxed inside the apartment since the day he bought it, since before the divorce, come to think of it - lap sitter, maker of cheese sandwiches.

_Clear as a sunny day, _Machado had said. _Doesn't even step on ants_.

She says something low-voiced that he can't make out, and Juliet laughs out loud. Andrew feels a muscle tick in his jaw.

She apologized to Juliet, he remembers. In public. For something her sister did.

She broke off Siobhan's affair with Henry.

She's making amends.

And sure, maybe she did those things to deepen her cover, to avoid rocking the boat. But she also looked straight into his eyes and said "I'll stand with you," and he believed it. Deep down, he still believes it. There's something transparent and honorable about her, despite the fact that she's been letting him think she's his wife for nearly two months. Either that, or she's a way better liar than Siobhan could ever hope to be.

He wishes he knew which it was.

He makes a decision.

* * *

><p>"Hello there," he says, stepping into the room. "What's going on?"<p>

They look up from what they're doing, dark head, bright head, and smile at him. Juliet jumps up from her chair and comes to give him a hug. She's wearing bright pink foam toe separators.

"Can I have the car, Daddy?" she asks him. "Barney's is having a sale, and I want to spend my gift card."

"I don't know," he teases her. "Won't you smudge your polish?"

A hint of the old attitude surfaces in her eyes. "Some of us can't afford our manicurists any more," she says, a touch of acid in her tone. "Some of us are temporarily without funds."

He kisses her forehead. "I'm teasing you, Juliet," he says. "I'll call the driver. He'll drop you off and pick you up. Unless Siobhan wants to go too."

Siobhan - Not-Siobhan - Bridget smiles and shakes her head. "I don't need anything," she says. "I'm in for the night."

Andrew files those two short sentences into his mental file of Things Siobhan Never Said Even Once. "Well," he says, half-challenging, "I guess that makes two of us, then. Whatever will we do with ourselves?"

Her gaze flies to his, her eyes widen and dilate, her lips part, blood rushes into her cheeks. She looks as bemused and flustered as Julie Andrews in the summerhouse with Christopher Plummer. Not a reaction he'd have expected from a pole dancer, Andrew muses. Not a reaction he ever got from Siobhan, either.

"Ew," Juliet says behind him. "Can't you two wait until I'm out of the house before you start making googly eyes at each other?"

And then Andrew realizes that he's looking at Bridget the same way she's looking at him.

* * *

><p>He feels guilty about this. A little bit, anyway. He's a married man.<p>

But he's married to a woman who's cuckolded and deserted him. And the woman he's thinking about bedding right now is in on the scheme; she's not an innocent in this, no matter how virginally she blushes.

How far will she go to maintain her cover? That's what the cynical part of him, the part that's still angry, is thinking. And the rest of him is wondering: what if her reaction to him is genuine? How does that change the game?

The front door closes behind Juliet. They're still staring at each other.

"Well," he says, holding out his hand to her. It shakes only very slightly. "Come on then, Mrs. Martin. Give us a kiss."


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

* * *

><p>She unfolds herself from the dining room chair and comes over to him. Watching her walk across the room toward him, Andrew is struck yet again by how tiny she is, how translucent her skin, how delicate her bone structure. How frightening it must be for her, he thinks, to approach him, knowing that he wants her naked body underneath his. How much a stranger he must seem to her.<p>

Perhaps she's accustomed to this, his inner cynic suggests. But how could she be? He takes her outstretched hand - so small that it disappears inside his own - and draws her closer to him, tipping up her chin so he can study her face. As much as he wants her, he is prepared to abort this mission at the first sign of fear in her eyes. But she comes willingly, she nestles against his body, she smiles up at him with clear and absolute trust, she raises herself on tiptoe so he will not have to bend so far to reach her mouth with his.

"Well?" she says after a moment, and he realizes that he's still staring, still searching her for the slightest speck of unwillingness or calculation.

"Forgive me," he murmurs, and slants his mouth over hers.

* * *

><p>This is not their first kiss. It is not even their first deep kiss. But it is the first time Andrew has touched her with the knowledge that she is Bridget. Not Siobhan, he thinks, not the miracle he thought she was, not the woman he's loved for five years loving him back. Just a soft-eyed stranger with an achingly familiar face, who blushes under his glances and trembles in his arms in a way her cooler, more cerebral sister never has.<p>

If she were sharper-edged, he thinks, if she had harder eyes, if she looked or acted the least bit like what an ex-addict exotic dancer ought to, he could use her to exorcise his anger with Siobhan - lying, duplicitous, self-serving Siobhan - drive his hurt and betrayal into the depths of her body and with any luck leave it there, at least in part. But she is not hard, she is not cold, she is holding nothing back, she is soft-petaled and receptive as a June rose, and so he cannot help himself; he enfolds her in his arms, he sips from her mouth the tranquility she offers and pours gentleness back into her.

"Oh," she says, "oh oh oh," with a throaty broken fall at the end of each word, and the sound makes him suddenly fierce. He presses against her and she gives way to him; they stumble backward through the dining room, past the table with its pulled-out chairs and through the open arch into his study, where the backs of her knees meet the charcoal-grey wool-upholstered seat cushions of the ridiculously expensive sofa placed in this exact spot by some overpriced designer or other, and thank God, Andrew thinks, thank God he agreed to it, because now it all makes sense; here he is and here she is, and the way they are tearing at each other they could not possibly have made it to the bedroom in time.

She is not wearing a brassiere, he realizes; the tank top has an elastic shelf built into it, which offers a minimal amount of support but under which she is completely naked. The straps slide easily down her arms, the little scrap of knit material pools at her waist, and he has his mouth on her before he can register the movement as a conscious decision. He can barely believe his own ferocity. She is still saying "oh oh oh" and her legs are wrapped around his waist, and all his taxicab fantasies about stripping Siobhan's designer clothes from her inch by inch, tying her wrists together with the ubiquitous silk scarf, teasing her, making her beg, making her admit who she is and what she's done, how she's wronged him, all that is undone by the simple elastic waistband of her flannel pajama pants, which are at her ankles before he's barely touched them. And now her hands are at his belt, soft little hands undoing him, making him undone too, and his hands on her lean little flanks make her twist and siren above him. She shudders, she mewls, she fights for breath.

"Andrew," she says. "Oh, God, Andrew. I have to talk to you."

"No," he says, beyond thought, "not yet, not now," because he has her rocking on his lap, straddling him, because she is honey and cream above him in the circle of yellow light from the desk lamp, because he is harder than he can remember being ever in his life, because the sound of her name on her lips makes him crazy, because he can't help touching her, because it is so very evident that she wants it too, because he knows what she's going to say and he doesn't want her to say it.

"Later," he promises, and she gives in, sinking down on him with a shudder and a sigh that he can feel to his palms, to the soles of his feet, still inside their Christian Louboutin loafers. _Bridget, _he almost says, and catches himself just in time. Instead, he laughs, low in his chest, and kisses her as she begins to move on him.

"Next time," he says into her ear, "we'll make it to the bed."

* * *

><p>It is much later.<p>

She is curled against him, eyes closed, her breathing light and even. She has good reason to be tired, Andrew thinks, and cannot suppress a tiny satisfied smile as he turns off his bedside lamp.

They have not yet had the conversation she wanted to have.

"Bridget," he breathes into the darkness, the word a shadow of a whisper. Beside him, the woman who is not his wife smiles in her sleep and snuggles closer. Andrew swallows hard; there is no longer any doubt in his mind as to her identity.

_Later, _he tells himself again. _You'll deal with it later._

He closes his eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

* * *

><p>Breakfast the next morning is … awkward. Andrew starts to wonder if he's done the right thing.<p>

Juliet is as perky as he's ever seen her, chattering about her upcoming overnight with her friend, what's-her-name - Andrew can't think of it off the top of his head, but he's met her, she's been to the apartment and, judging by what he's seen of Juliet's former friends, she looks and acts refreshingly normal; plus, she lives two blocks away - and some school club function that's scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Picking up trash and eating pizza. Juliet's unreasonably excited about this, but it seems a harmless and wholesome enough way to spend a Saturday to Andrew. He eyes what he can see of her skirt as she bolts her orange juice, wonders whether he should make her change, wonders whether the outfit in her cute Gucci overnight satchel is even more scandalous, decides that it probably is, kisses her cheek, and lets her go without saying anything. It's been too long since she's been this happy, this uncomplicated and childlike.

Once she's gone, silence settles over them. "All right, darling?" he asks her, and Bridget nods and smiles, even raises one hand to touch his cheek. Her eyes don't match the smile, though; she looks tense and drawn. Before she settles the scarf around her neck, Andrew notices a string of faint violet smudges where her neck meets her shoulder. He is instantly swamped by guilt.

Siobhan has that fragile porcelain complexion, too, the kind of skin that bruises at the slightest provocation. She, however, was never shy about telling him to back off; Andrew thinks of the courtly slow-motion ballet their infrequent lovemaking had become before she disappeared, compares it to last night's sexual triathlon, and winces.

Bridget hasn't complained. He highly doubts that she will. But that makes him feel even more culpable.

What have her past relationships been like? He studies her over the top of his teacup, troubled by the wave of possessiveness that rolls over him. From the way that she responds to even the most basic kindnesses, he decides, she hasn't had much experience with chivalry. He imagines her on a platform in some smoky, dimly-lit room, gyrating to club music, white skin vulnerable and glimmering under the strobes, dodging the hands of frat boys and bikers and traveling salesmen in bad toupées, not a person so much as an expendable commodity, a convenience to ease the loneliness of life on the road.

What gentleness has she known, if any?

Certainly she didn't get much from him last night.

"Are you okay?" she asks him, snapping him out of his dangerous reverie. "You look a little … intense."

"I'm fine," he lies, and forces himself to smile. Then her phone rings, and when she glances at the screen to see who it is her face shuts down into carefully-blank wariness.

"Sorry," she says to him, "I should take this." And though part of him wants to quiz her about the caller - is it someone from her old life, someone from that shadowy world she lived in before he knew her, someone who means her harm? - is it her sister, calling to connive with her under his unsuspecting nose? - he cannot bring himself to add to her agitation. He nods, feigning unconcern.

"I should be at the office anyway," he says. "For some reason I slept later than usual." That gets a blush and a half-smile from her, distracted as she is, and when he offers her his cheek, she kisses him with a hint of last night's glow.

He leaves by the front entrance, slides into the car, and directs the driver around the block. Double-parked in the bus lane at the corner, they wait - but not for long; it's not five minutes before she emerges, cell phone still clamped to her ear. Andrew watches her thread herself handily through a crush of honking cabs and disappear into the subway entrance a block away from their building.

Impossible to track her farther - for now, anyway. He sends up a silent prayer that she will elude whatever danger is stalking her, at least for today, and nods to the driver.

* * *

><p>Olivia is waiting for him by his office door, disguising her true agenda with a stack of quarterly reports. "Morning," she says cheerfully. "Got a moment?"<p>

"Of course," Andrew says, pretending to a nonchalance he doesn't feel. "One second, though, if you don't mind waiting; I need to make a quick call."

"I don't mind."

He pats at his pockets. "Might I borrow your phone? Mine's at the bottom of my briefcase."

When she hands it to him, he pulls up her photos and scrolls through them until he finds the offending snapshot of Siobhan and Henry. "I meant to ask you yesterday," he says, backing away so she can't grab it back, "who sent this to you."

If she's off balance, she's hiding it well. "Henry, of course."

"Liar," he says, and hits the delete key. Olivia hisses through her teeth.

"Making the evidence go away doesn't change what they did," she says coolly. "Decided to bury your head in the sand, Andrew? I thought better of you than that."

"That," he says, "I highly doubt."

"It's your business."

"Yes, it is."

She gives him an arch look. "I just can't believe you'd rather let her turn you into some pathetic cuckold than confront her with the truth."

_If you only knew, _Andrew thinks, and bares his teeth at her.

"I will not be leaving my wife this week, Olivia," he says, goaded utterly beyond politesse. "And if I did, it would not be for you. So stop acting like you're personally vested in my domestic affairs. It's none of your concern."

With that, he leaves her sputtering in the hallway and pushes past her into his office, putting a closed door between them.

Time to make some amends of his own.

* * *

><p>At six o' clock in the evening, the apartment is overrun with florists and decorators. By seven, it is empty. Andrew sits on the sofa, a solitary traveler adrift in an ocean of candlelight, and waits for her to come home.<p>

At nine-ten, the elevator chimes and she steps out into a pool of rose petals.

Siobhan is not fond of roses, white or otherwise. He's guessing Bridget will be.

It is not their anniversary.

He has no reason to be sitting here with his heart held out to her in both hands. It's crazy, it's unnecessary, and it's likely to end badly - in bloodshed or heartbreak or possibly both, take your pick.

The look on her face makes him very glad that he's taken the risk.

"I love you," she says with a hint of a sob in her voice, and he digs his fingernails into his palms, preferring physical pain to the possibility that it might not be the truth.

There are no lies in those brimming-clear eyes. He wonders if he's gone completely insane, then decides that he doesn't care.

"I love you, too," he says - if this is not the truth, he thinks, it is as close as he can get under the circumstances - and takes her into his arms.


End file.
